In the same way that band-aids couldn't heal stab wounds but it never hurt to try, I couldn't move on with my life without apologizing to Lottie as soon as possible. After rerouting my walk home following the escape through the back way to avoid showing my face in front of the protesters at the front of the building, I struggled to tear the thought from my mind of what there was to say. What I could have done to possibly make this better.

I shuffled home under the fierce July heat and the pale blue sky with my paws resting in my pockets and my mind buzzing with thought. Phrases and sentences pieced themselves together and tore themselves apart, tirelessly searching for the best approach. At this rate, it was far easier to accidentally screw everything up again than to make things better. The warmth of the afternoon throbbed down onto me and blocked me from concentration as deep as I would have really benefited from, but the contemplation brought me all the way back home nevertheless.

My paws twitched uncomfortably as if another animal's had been thrust into their place while I drifted numbly through my neighborhood to reach my house. I still couldn't quite wrap my head around the damage I had provoked in the first place. It was as if my mind was tricking me into believing that it had never even been me just so that I wouldn't take a good look at who I was. No matter how unnatural or foreign the apology would feel in my mouth at the sensation that I was apologizing for something I felt like I hadn't done, I wouldn't think of resolving the issue any other way.

Mom must have picked up on the fact that something was wrong when I entered the house and tugged off my suit jacket to refresh myself of the intense summertime heat. She asked me if everything was okay with that touch of fragility in her voice whenever she worried about me as I tucked the jacket over my arm, still waiting for the heat that had gathered under it to disperse. She knew what I had done to Lottie and I wasn't too eager to mention it again, but I decided to be honest and let her know that I just had a lot on my mind and it would pass eventually.

Exhaustion sat heavily on my shoulders as I joined my mother and father at the table for a late dinner. It was a vegetable dish with salad and peas and neatly sliced tomatoes tonight and though I felt no urgent need to eat, I made sure to clean my plate. I allowed myself to drop the thought of my upcoming apology to become verbally present at the table, contributing in occasional and unimportant chatter over the meal with Mom and Dad when prompted. For about twenty minutes, it was like nothing had happened at all, until after I had shut myself off in my room to go to sleep when the thoughts came surging back.

My mind was alert and awake hours into the night as I tossed and turned, trying and failing to find a comfortable position to fall asleep. Countless interpretations of the statement I had yet to give echoed through my mind in the dense darkness of the room, but those thoughts weren't alone this time. Horrors plagued my mind in the dead of night of every hint of every reaction that I could possibly receive, utterly realistic in perspective that it seemed they were destined to occur. Lottie's panicked face flashed through my memory and I could already hear her voice telling me that she couldn't quite forgive me, that she thought it was best if we ceased our friendship as it was. We were closer as friends and more devoted to each other's company than ever before chaos broke out yesterday morning. I couldn't lose that now.

I was lucky to have evaded nightmares with how relentlessly I stretched out the event as I tried to fall asleep. It must have been at least two in the morning before I finally nodded off into a dreamless sleep, but I frequently tore myself from that state in the night as the same thoughts jabbed at me again. By the time my alarm was chiming me up and out of bed to prepare for work on the morning of the sixteenth, I had probably contemplated the situation over enough times to have predicted every possible way it could turn out.

I set off for work with the firm step in my stride of my confident, self-reliant persona. I'd figured that the softer version of myself was no good in trying to apologize and take responsibility for my mistakes, given the way I lost so much sleep trying to make sense of it. Now I could twist the situation to my liking and pick apart the moment to narrow down the best approach. I'd done it several times before, I could surely do it again. I flicked the switch in my mind on my way through the doorway and went off into the world with my feet knowing precisely where they were going and my mind set with a strategy.

Well, it didn't last long, as I found myself almost embarrassed to admit to myself. I stumbled upon Lottie in the break room arranging herself a warm cup of tea—I didn't miss the flicker of fear through her dark eyes as she caught sight of me—And she accepted when I asked to talk about what had happened during that meeting. I started off with a line I had recited in my head on the way to work and perfected nearly to the sound, offering an apology much like Lyle's had been, by announcing that I wasn't proud of what I did and that it wasn't who I wanted to be. But once I was reminded of the conversation I had shared with Lyle just yesterday morning, the next thing I knew, my chest was caving in on me and my voice was breaking as my well-crafted image collapsed as the tears sprung back to my eyes. That wasn't exactly part of the plan, but there we were.

The subtle shift in emotion in Lottie's face as my words poured out, almost drowned in my choking tears, told me that her fear was straying from towards me to for me. I'd told her that I never wanted to hurt her and promised that I would never hurt her again. Lottie accepted the apology but it wasn't a decision driven by anxiety, I sensed, rather we saw eye-to-eye about the situation and she understood that my words were true.

And then, somehow, we moved on. We had become close again, though it was nearly a week before Lottie completely relaxed around me again. At last, the troubling event was behind us as a distant memory and it was time to look forward in life. Once we'd gotten the uncertainty out of the way, it was the two of us against the world just as it had been before everything had gone wrong. We clung tightly to the sensation of each other's presence to claim any last bit of normalcy that we could get in these times, an unstated vow to lift each other up and hold accountability for each other as best friends should.

But looking forward into the future meant facing the troubles that the company endured. Telling myself that it had yet to improve was a lost cause. It was about time that I learned to accept that it was about to be a rough road from here on out. I couldn't surrender myself to that kind of vulnerability anymore. That day, I made a choice.

Just as easily as I had switched over that morning, I deviated back into the more hostile side of myself with a promise to myself that I wouldn't free myself from it despite any way I would feel or any event to cross my path. It was going to be quite a while before I felt anything different from now on, if I ever felt anything different at all, given the circumstances. Right now, the highest need was to adapt. I had to do what I could to get through this, even if it meant redirecting my life as it stood.

. . .

What's Going On at the HHDA?

My name is Tutu, and I'm a journalist specialized in the coverage of current events and the information I can gather towards them. For the past several months, the Happy Home Designer and Academy has been attracting attention from countless areas and groups, but for reasons that are less than ideal. The popularity, as well as the reviews, have surrendered to a significant drop since December, when the problem first seemed to arise. Complaints about the company behind the well-known name have become a likely occurrence and former customers have even gone as far as advising current customers to end their connections. And nobody can understand why this is happening.

I have received the opportunity to visit the HHDA myself and speak with judge and instructor Digby the Shih Tzu. He was hesitant to speak of the event in a way that seemed that he held more truth than he brought to the light. I asked him about the changes that the business has been exhibiting and he claimed that there have been no changes of the sort. He spoke highly on the input and reception of his customers while disregarding the fact of their continual dissatisfaction. His inattentive attitude towards the situation left me and many curious individuals with less information and more questions than I had gone in with. So, what's going on at the HHDA?

If there's anything I can conclude from the past series of events distributed from the effects the HHDA holds, it's that the designers holding the company together are in denial of the situation to a certain degree. What's clear for now is that there is most definitely a problem that needs resolving and without that resolve could cause dire consequences. For reasons that no animal remotely turning their attention towards the circumstances nor I have yet managed to put together, the designers of the HHDA appear to be ignoring that problem. For now, all we can do is wait for new information to be uncovered and trust that these designers know what they're doing, but if this continues, I can't see a different future than failure.

. . .

The number of visitors never stopped dropping in its subtle, steady pattern. I might not have seen changes by the day, but as the weeks snuck by, the crowds seemed to become thinner and thinner. I had never seen such a decrease in support all at once like this and it sent a quiver to my heart to consider the crowd becoming dangerously bare in the future. How long could it have been before we only had twenty animals in the Open Advisory room at once per day? Fifteen? Or even ten? What happened if, a year or so down the line, we were forgotten entirely?

The atmosphere could almost have been the same if it weren't for the fading life it held. The room filled with pleasant chatter and smiling faces like nothing was wrong, sounds and sights that were ever so slowly slipping away from me. It was still rare for a customer to express distaste within the walls of the building, but it did happen possibly once or twice a week. Expressing dissatisfaction among the place that provoked the feeling was simply a waste of energy—After all, what changes could have been made in such a familiar setting?—And it seemed this was common knowledge.

It was everything that happened outside of work that served as a consistent reminder of how unappreciated the business and I were. The bitter words spat at me on my way to and from the building and the suspicious eyes following me whenever I left the house was enough to say what wasn't within the walls of the HHDA. It was something I came to expect, but I could never really get used to it. I adjusted to the routine of keeping my head down when I passed populous neighborhoods that could have recognized me, but it was in the grim shift to my schedule that the future I was being drawn into seemed more and more dark.

July passed into August. My fear of being recognized turned into something irrational. Just the thought of going out and being shouted at about how I was a terrible individual or everything that I was doing wrong pierced me with a sickening spike of dismay. I couldn't walk twenty feet from my front door without my stomach bubbling up in queasiness. It was around this point that I had begun to lose sleep as well as appetite, lying awake in the depths of night on what I could never have been able to tell was an empty stomach. My stress levels had never once run this high for so long before and I was sure that I was sooner to have a complete breakdown than to genuinely relax.

With the storm that raged in my mind with every passing day, no one could have noticed it. I wouldn't let that happen. I had a responsibility to my customers to keep from slipping up and admitting that something was terribly wrong. I needed to be calm, at least to the extent that everyone could see. That was what my time spent in public became; a self-assured mindset concealing an upset stomach. It wasn't until the moments I could spend alone that I could realize how sick and tired I was of this entire thing and how strongly I ached for it to be done with.

The month of August seemed to drag by in the moment, but with every blink days had already disappeared. I recited the events of the past year in my mind more times than I could count, scouring through for what had caused everything to go wrong, if I could have picked out the signs, if I could have stopped it somehow. Silence didn't sit well with the gnawing urge that I couldn't just say nothing, a million apologies waiting to leap from the tip of my tongue not just for my customers, but for Lottie and Lyle as well. I wanted to apologize to the animals waiting for answers that we had let them down like this and hadn't reset everything back on track by now. I wanted to apologize to my coworkers for not completely devoting myself to find those answers and lift the pressure on them to do so themselves. But no matter how far I reached for those words, clawing for some kind of resolve, it was blank.

On the faintly cooler day of Wednesday the thirteenth, I emerged through the doorway to play my part in Open Advisory to be faced with a crowd that couldn't have been more than twenty-five animals. The sight had struck me like an unexpected smack in the face, eyes bouncing between the patches of emptiness in the room. I had never seen a crowd this thin in that room before. Open Advisory had always been the most popular of the service choices, a common favorite to stop and visit whenever one was in the area or simply wanted to be involved somehow. My heart was thumping in my chest as I gave no visible reaction and strayed along the sides of the room in anticipation to offer my assistance and reminded myself that it was still early in the day yet and that the number would likely rise closer to ten o'clock.

It didn't. As the clock hand swept around in its circle, some animals went and few entered, leaving the crowd no thicker than it had been when I first arrived. Nobody hardly turned their eyes in my direction, much less approached to ask for information or advice. The level of conversation floating through the room was notably less lively and the absence of conversation felt to sit oddly on my own tongue. On any other day, I would have at least had a discussion or two with a visiting animal. Of course, I was aware of the continuous drop in popularity at the HHDA, but I hadn't seen beforehand that I would have been experiencing the drawbacks so immensely all at once. Now that I was faced with a crowd who could barely even notice my presence, it was like some surreal and twisted dream.

"I have to say something to them," I insisted, softening my voice just slightly in conversation so that I wouldn't disturb the rest of the crowd farther along in the room.

Lyle had come by around nine forty-five to check on me and my progress only to discover the situation for himself. He hadn't been so quick to leave, however, lingering beside me with his arms folded as he looked out over the group with a sort of solemnity hiding in his eyes. I'd taken the opportunity to express the thoughts that had been spinning through my mind, and he tore his gaze from the crowd to listen but his arms were still folded.

"You do?" Lyle asked. "What do you have to say?"

"Well, you see what's happening," I said, sneaking a brief glance at the crowd to strengthen my point. A few animals had caught the sound of our conversation and were watching us quietly to figure out what was happening. "We're losing visitors. They don't want to be somewhere it's not favorable to be anymore. Their thoughts, not mine. We should at least tell them that we're not just letting this go. We're working hard to make things right again and if they don't know that, then we need to let them know that."

Lyle's answer came hesitantly as he mulled this over. He shifted thoughtfully in his stance, turning his head to study the group again as if trying to determine if it was small enough that we could be concerned about it. After several seconds of silent contemplation, he turned back to face me and uncrossed his arms to send out his paw in a gesture to allow me forward.

"Be my guest," Lyle mumbled in what seemed to be a hopeless tone, dropping his paw back to his side and retreating back to the wall to provide me with the attention I was asking for.

Obviously, the crowd couldn't have cared less about me right now. As I faced the cluster of animals in preparation to begin my announcement, it was like I was utterly invisible as the visitors slowly drifted along the exhibits with no focus on me whatsoever. I struggled to pull the right words to the surface of my mind as the moments crept by like hours, but I could come up with something as I went along.

"Pardon me," I called out at last, my voice strong and unshaken as I cast it out over the room, adjusting my stance into one that implied calmness and certainty. It was a few seconds before the animals seemed to take notice that I was speaking to them as faces gradually began to turn towards me. "If I may have your attention for just one moment. I have an announcement to make."

One by one, faces continued to turn. I stood patient and unmoved, waiting to draw in all of the focus in the room. In seconds, every single pair of eyes had found their way to mine, expectantly listening for whatever announcement I would have to give. The lack of nervousness tugging at my gut almost surprised me—I really was burned out.

"I'm sure you're all aware of the situation that's going on here as of late," I went on to the sea of attentive animals. "I'm not going to pretend that this company is doing as well as it's always been, because that would be untruthful, but what happens here doesn't go unnoticed. I want to thank you for taking the time to be here today and support us through these trying times. I also want you to know that we're doing everything we can to bring things back to the way they were before all of this happened and make things better again to solve the problem. Thank you again for being here with us and staying patient during our troubles. We're extremely grateful for your help and with it, I know that everything is going to be okay."

Not a sound left the group. The eyes that weren't still staring at me had begun to wander through the room almost in confusion. If I hadn't been working in this building for a year and a half, I would have had no choice but to assume they didn't have a clue who I even was. It was seconds later that movement broke out among a few of the animals and while I assumed at first they were returning to their activity without a word, I realized once they started making their way in my direction that they were leaving through the door behind me. Suddenly, Lyle's hopelessness made a bit more sense.

I stole an unsure glance back at Lyle at the wall as the three animals that had slipped out of the crowd pushed their way through the doors and disappeared out into the hallway. His arms were folded again as he stood at the back of the room, surveying the event with a look that clearly didn't have much faith in the situation. It was only when the doors had fallen shut again did he stir, pushing out a soft sigh at length as he uncrossed his arms and stepped out of his situated stance at the wall.

"Just leave it be," Lyle whispered before he followed the animals out, wordlessly elbowing his way through the doors and abandoning me in the agonizing silence of the room and was gone.

. . .

An Insight Into the Downfall of the HHDA

The Happy Home Designer and Academy has been attracting a great amount of attention the past year alone. Ever since late 2013 and early 2014, the HHDA has experienced a rapid drop in popularity and admiration. Over time, the urgency to visit the establishment for the experience or the teachings has taken a significant decrease as well as the number of visitors. The issue has provoked worry in some, causing concerns of losing the company sometime in the near future, while others stick to the claim that it has been heading towards failure for a while now. But the most crucial dilemma is this: Nobody even knows what caused this in the first place.

As of this moment in August of 2014, all signs point towards a sudden change in the company's methods that have yet to even be claimed by the company itself. Countless customers have complained that their needs are no longer being met or heard as devotedly as they had once been before the blow to the reputation. Several have stated they have noticed that they have gradually become less and less of a priority over the months, despite the company's commitment to serving their goals and ambitions. Now, bewilderment troubles the crowd at the situation as the future for the HHDA becomes more and more uncertain and doomed to fall.

The designers at the HHDA have been questioned frequently about this issue, but they have all come up with the same response. None of them have any information to offer about the unexpected changes to the methods, dismissing the matter by the assurance that there are no changes to mention. Their confusion only baffles the crowd further and their absence of intervention has begun to cause them to lose not only customers by the day, but trust in their abilities. The three names at the HHDA have begun to travel swiftly through the crowds and the statements aren't favorable. As the year goes on with no answers as to how to reverse the problem, it appears that one of these days, their loss of communication with not only their customers but each other will lead to their defeat.

At the HHDA, we stand for your best and brightest future and we stand together, as the owner Lyle declared in the 2013 Happy Home Initiation, but it's growing increasingly likely that this statement will lose its strength in the coming months of the HHDA's continuous deterioration. If anything's clear for the moment, it's that the company is truly in its endgame now.

. . .

After a month of trying, I didn't need to push myself to be convinced of the act I was putting on. I didn't need to waste a thought on it before it was already sitting at the front of my mind. Once or twice, I even experimented with switching back, just to see if I still could. Though I did break through the threshold with little difficulty, it was a mask I failed in keeping up for long as it didn't quite fit right anymore. I had completely made the transition for a second time and it was too late to turn back if I wished for it. I was finally learning to adapt to the changes in my life and make those sacrifices.

Eventually, Lyle and Lottie began to take notice of the adjustments I had made. For a while, any sign I displayed of an identity that even slightly veered off of the path that I had shown to follow most frequently before now resulted in inquiring glances. It was not something they were used to and they might have even found it strange, although they knew the kind of thing I did to cope. But after a while, they seemed to stop questioning the matter at last as life went on amidst it. Given the circumstances, they had come to understand the need to adjust.

While they were noticing my changes, I had begun to notice something towards them. Amidst the rapid changes of the world as we knew it, something in the way they treated me and the way their personality shone through shifted as well. But this time, it wasn't eyes drowned with disappointment and rigid words to be better, which I probably wouldn't have stood to take this time around as I knew for sure I was doing the best I could. It was like we were all unspokenly growing closer, joining in an unprovoked and almost unintentional firm friendship.

No, not a friendship. United together under the weighty pressure that tried to pull us down into the ground, we were like a family. Friendship was distant to a certain degree and the bond that had fixed between us was subtle, unbreakable, a knowledge that no matter what happened, we would always be together. We were just one small family clinging to whatever resources we had left at this point, clinging to each other to carry us through the overbearing threats to our name, and putting our heads together to solve the problem as a group.

On any other occasion, I imagined that this could have brought me a warm flutter of joy of sorts. When I first started working at the HHDA in February of 2013, I hadn't even called Lottie my best friend and I knew Lyle as nothing more than her grumpy uncle who was looking after her. I never would have anticipated that we would stand stronger than ever today as solidly close friends or even a family. A family weaved together through pain and suffering. The family of the Happy Home.

No matter what the name stated, this was no longer a happy home. If I were to be honest with myself, it was barely even a home at all, not anymore. The foundations of what used to be a flourishing home were collapsing easier than they had been put up years and years ago. The walls were crumbling down and the roof was caving in. The panic of alarms rang out with every crash it took to the ground, but when the damage was done, there was nowhere left to turn.

I once thought I was standing outside the door, or what was left of the door, with said family as we watched our home breaking down with nothing left for us to do about it. I thought I was watching the very source of our hope deteriorating at our feet with the sinking dismay that hadn't quite struck fully that we had lost our place to live and everything in it. But the truth was, I had never escaped in time. None of us had. I was standing in the middle of it all, anticipating the walls to give out and crush me at last, but even then I could take a breath of hope. I wasn't going to be crushed just yet. Even then, Lyle was holding up the collapsing walls to the best of his ability as the rest of it tumbled down around us, knowing that he couldn't rescue our home in its entirety and so he used his strength that slowly wasted away to protect Lottie and me.

Lyle might not have been physically holding up the walls of the HHDA to keep everything in place and to prevent its inevitable fall, but his words were enough of a barrier to shield away the terrors that lay behind them, the ones I didn't often consider for the sake of my mental state and the ones he still didn't want us to see. Whenever the opportunity arose, he never missed the chance to promise that everything was going to be okay in the end, though none of us knew for sure even when the end would arrive. The words were always the same, but after reality sank upon our shoulders that it was soon to be a year since the troubles began with no clear way out, the devotion to the claim soon began to fade out with Lyle's assurance of the situation.

One of these days, he was going to realize that he could no longer hold up the walls and would instead envelop us tightly in his arms to finish off the job of keeping the world out as the ceiling came down on top of us.

. . .

Lyle the Otter: The Mysterious Businessman That Nobody Questioned

After opening what used to be one of if not the most successful interior design companies at thirty-one years old back in late 1985, the diligent otter Lyle quickly won over the crowd with his joyful and eager personality. His insightful advice and unshaken devotion to fulfilling customers' needs brought a vast and rapid growth to the company's popularity in as short as a few years. But even with his name out in the world, customers have often noticed how he still kept many things quiet to the public eye such as his life, his family outside of his niece that began work at the HHDA in 2009, or even the sudden and inexplicable vanishing of his first employee fourteen years ago. Privacy frequently proves beneficial in a life of recognition but too much of it provides more uncertainty than comfort.

From the very start of the endeavor years ago, Lyle's motive for pursuing his work has always been guiding others to their home-related goals or simply becoming a notable stop on their journey if such goals were not present, so he claims. With such a keen approach, it was easy to not question his support, especially in the events where he opened the doors to new designers Lottie in 2009 and Digby in 2013 to reach further towards his ambitions. But many animals have noticed that while the message never changed, Lyle's enthusiasm in engaging in his work has dropped over time and it seems to have worn down since the first day the business was open to the public. Mixed feelings among the crowd are shared about this fact.

After the critical blow that the HHDA's reputation has taken this year, Lyle's devotion to the company is being questioned more than ever. Some believe that he had accepted success and completely gave up once that success began to recede. Others worry that he has been carelessly throwing away the status of the company for much longer due to his fade in passion over time. A few have guessed that it had never held as much importance to him as he had made it appear in the beginning, which would explain the disappearance in enthusiasm and his lack of action towards the situation.

As usual and as expected, Lyle has chosen to keep his thoughts unspoken and his assessment of the situation remains unknown. Whether he truly is throwing away the company as its reputation falls or he's taking action that goes under the radar from the crowd, the fact of the matter is that the chances that he continues to be worthy of rescuing the business he built up from the ground have become terribly slim.

. . .

There was another fact that struck me after a while. I'd never heard Lyle complain even once about what was happening. It wasn't that he never mentioned it, as he did often in trying to determine an approach or a problem and to discuss the future if it continued. It was always what can we do and never once what makes this so bad.

He also failed to mention whether or not he was even worried about the collapse of the company he had worked so hard to raise to its success. It would have been silly to guess that he wasn't worried, though it didn't show if he was. One might have assumed he had everything under control or maybe he wasn't even aware of the dilemma passing through. Anyone within these walls knew well just how much of an effect the string of events held on him, even while he tried to conceal it from the world and its prying eyes.

A few times, I cluelessly questioned myself how he could have stood so unmoved and unfearing when hundreds of animals were against him, taunting him for his failure with every passing day. I wondered how he could have possibly gathered the courage to contemplate the near future while the thought instantly turned my stomach. Maybe he had already accepted the situation, acknowledging that things were just as they are. That possibility seemed right down his alley for optimism, or lack thereof. Maybe some part of him thought it was fair and didn't jump to change it, despite how that would have made less sense than the former.

I'd seen what animals were saying about him. If I'd seen it, then he'd most definitely seen it as well. In fact, he'd probably witnessed claims and stories that I myself had missed and the wide unknown left too much room for imagination. I was struggling, but I couldn't even picture how much more terribly he was suffering, being the common source of the blame as the owner of the HHDA. He didn't need to express his worry for me to understand it was there. I couldn't stand to predict the ceaseless and soul-withering stress that surged behind his deadpan face and broken eyes. Maybe that was why he wouldn't admit how worried he was.

A different concern closely followed when this thought crossed my mind. Back in early June, Lyle had turned sixty years of age. There was no telling what that heightened level of stress could do to someone at that age. My stomach turned and twisted when the truth frequently repeated itself to me. If I wasn't even sure of the extent of his anxiety, then the results of it became more and more heart-wrenching. Was that why he didn't say anything? Was he also haunted by the future that my nervous thoughts fed to me? With the vast uncertainty, I couldn't tear the concern from my mind that the fall of the HHDA was only the beginning of something far, far worse.

And yet, he still moved through life like nothing was wrong. He was skilled in the illusion of making it so, but maybe too much. In little flickers, in brief, shining moments, it was this atmosphere that infrequently sent a ray of light through the utter darkness, a touch of relief that everything really was going to be okay after too long of waiting. The feeling didn't last long as soon as reality consistently came my way again.

Many times, I passed Lyle's office door on the way to my own office and glanced through the glass to find him not typing at his computer, a sight I relied on before the turn of events, but instead sitting with a blank stare at the screen like he was waiting for the work to finish itself. More and more often he lingered in rooms that Lottie and I were leaving such as the cafeteria or Happy Homeroom even when there was no more work to be done, and sometimes I glanced back to find his head in his paws when he thought nobody saw him. Before now, there had been at least some quantity of distinct life behind his eyes, but I noticed more every crawling day how it seemed like he wasn't even truly back there anymore. At long last after an endless struggle, he really was gone now.

Despite our exhausted and desperate pleas for resolve, the battle shuffled on. Reporters and unsatisfied customers and detrimental reviews had become routine. A passing day with the appearance of unfamiliar animals with clipboards or even a camera crew gave me a silent grumble of the upcoming unpleasantness, where I was then flooded with questions of what was happening to the HHDA or what the group was doing wrong nowadays. Crowds yearning for answers I still didn't have clustered the space in front of the building as I came and went from work, straining my eyes from flinching at the short bursts of light as someone somewhere visibly documented my presence. Even Mom and Dad ceased to scan the daily newspaper when my name was suddenly trending in a dreadful way. This fight was far from over.

There really was no hope here.

. . .

A Not-So Happy Home - HHDA Destined to Fall?

If the Happy Home Designer and Academy is known for anything in particular, it has to be the dedication its workers have continuously been towards a brighter future in interior design and home-owning, but as of recent even these dedications are being questioned.

The HHDA has been undergoing an alarming drop in sales and popularity at the start of 2015 and well back into 2014, and now certain accusations and unfavorable reviews have risen greatly. With such a drastic change from the supporting comments it had formerly received, it's likely that the business will not see the coming year.

Despite the rise in unpopularity that the HHDA is currently facing, the cause of the change that had provoked it is, as of the current moment, uncertain. While the main issue has yet to be disclosed, complaints have been made that customers have started to feel unheard and underappreciated in a seemingly new approach the business has taken towards its future. If such comments continue, the HHDA is at risk for the end of stability and will encounter the requirement of being shut down completely.

The official director of the HHDA, an otter named Lyle who has run the business since its doors first opened in December of 1985, has been questioned frequently about this issue. Lyle has claimed that he knows no more about the situation than his customers and has responded by dismissing the problem entirely, stating that nothing has changed with the methods that the HHDA supports. However, both the claim of his stance in the issue and the negligent response he has given has provoked a ripple of suspicion among the customers while many doubt his reliability and some have gone as far as to label his claims as lies.

Because of the detrimental accusations that have been demonstrated against him, the future of Lyle's work at the HHDA is something that has become undetermined. Many unsatisfied customers are urging to take Lyle out of his place of work due to the damage he is causing to the company as the common opinion of this period in time is that he is no longer fit to run a business. It is currently unknown whether main manager Lottie or instructor Digby have been questioned as well.

. . .

September emerged as autumn took the land in full swing. After nearly two weeks of the absence of improvement, Lottie's twenty-first birthday followed the change. Now that her birthday had come around, it wouldn't have been long before I'd be turning nineteen in December. I repeatedly thought back to Lottie's last birthday before any of this had happened, the day she turned twenty years old, and found an immense difference in the times. On the twelfth of last year, I'd used up the previous evening to prepare her a cake like I had no other care in the world. It had taken several days to be completely consumed and sat in the break room fridge until it was gone. I would never have guessed what I would have been going through a year from then.

Even as the special day arrived, it didn't feel more special than any other day that came around. I couldn't find even a hint of hopeful anticipation for the day to arrive as it approached, as if we were still in the middle of summer and so far away from the date. Nobody had any energy stored away for a celebration. And so, the day went past like there was no special event, the date coming and going with hardly a mention. Once or twice, I admitted to myself how this was most likely the best decision—Ignoring our responsibilities and how terribly the world hated us right now to engage in celebration would have only left me feeling selfish and guilty.

Just like that, the year of 2014 was coming to an end to slip away into the unknown of 2015. September crept closer into conclusion as October came into place. Autumn had barely just begun, but it seemed that the winter chills had arrived early this end-of-year season. The temperatures dropped a little more each and every day as I was dragged into the new month and called for my hefty coat on the walk to and from work two months in advance. The unexpected briskness was just yet another thing to leave me heavy with dejection.

The strike of reality of the deteriorating reputation of the HHDA was as sharp as the crisp breezes that wandered the streets. The pure fragility of my connection with my customers and clients was enough to snatch my breath away in anxious anticipation. The idea emerged in constructive meetings to reach out to previous customers whom we had at some point invited them to continue the service if they wished to see if they would follow up with the suggestion. It was painfully low of an action and the acknowledgment that it might be received as such was not ignored, but as the statement went, desperate times called for desperate measures.

At some point, I'd stumbled upon the memory of Jack, who had visited Happy Homeroom for a Halloween special around this time last year. Not only had his short appearance sent out a wave of excitement and enthusiasm that someone of that status had stopped by and therefore significantly heightened the urge to repeat the effort, but his words stuck out in my memory of his expressing of his boundless energy to return the next year as well. At last, a collective breath of hope made its way through the Happy Home group as we got in contact with him in faith that we could echo the line of events and rescue the company. He did not respond.

November took off in low spirits. We'd entered the most bleak and hopeless period yet in losing grasp on our final chance at reviving our impact. Arriving at eleven months into the ceaseless struggle, I found myself reaching back for my life before more than ever. It had been such a happy, glowing time, the last time everything was genuinely normal, and from last December onward, I had lost everything I ever had and was. This thought drilled into my head in sleepless nights with eyes squeezed so tight that they throbbed in a dull ache and with strangled tears in the dead of night where no one could know they fell. I couldn't ever quite wrap my mind around everything I'd lost and now, the clock was ticking down until the end, whatever would come from it.

Whoever had eagerly taken up the duties and the cost of this job two years ago in indescribable hope and longing for the future was no longer me. Even the work wasn't the same feature anymore. The passion that it had sucked into me was nothing more than a distant idea, a memory like candlelight flickering in the dark. This was no longer a job. I knew what waited for me every time I stepped through my doorway to take on the journey to the destination. It was a war and I was on the losing side, on the brink of having everything I had ever known and loved snatched from me in a matter of moments. Realistically, though I pushed the thought from my consciousness more times than I could count, it could have been any day now.

Even Lottie was fading away at this point. The frail scraps that had remained of her optimism had been something I looked forward to while I ventured through the streets with unfamiliar voices taunting my name. But now I realized that she had disappeared with Lyle, an utter void-like emptiness dwelling in her eyes where there had once been a glimmer of hope that shone bright in the darkness that surrounded her. Her voice had changed as well, sinking from the lighthearted bounce in her tone to something I could have only called lifeless beyond the vast domain of her hope.

She was truly suffering. The remnants of her positivity had stood as my own last hope and once that had gone, so had the warmth of the atmosphere. Without it, reality never looked so dim. The dark times were here to stay and if it was something that had the power to bring Lottie down, then the future was not one to find comfort in.

. . .

What's Next For the HHDA?

After hanging on to what little support it has left for over a year now, talk of the fall of the Happy Home Designer and Academy does not go unnoticed. As the number of customers and visitors have grown considerably slimmer since 2013, the common assumption has become that the business is one wrong move, or even one bad day, from toppling over for good. While the cause of such a change was pondered over for months and still questioned to this day, the point has been reached where it may be too late to resolve. For the current moment, customers and otherwise alike wait in anticipation for the day to arrive for the HHDA to close its doors at last.

With the high possibilities of the HHDA ceasing entry to the public for the first time in thirty years, countless questions have arisen for what the future looks like for the company. While the designers promise that there are ways to fix such damage and that everything will return to normal eventually, it's completely unclear whether or not these statements hold true. Any action currently being taken against the dangerous fluctuation of the company's reputation is being performed behind closed doors and any definite facts are being withheld from the public. With every passing day of the HHDA's collapsing structure, it becomes more clear that the time has come to let go of the formerly beloved interior design company.

But even as the company's lengthy reign comes to its bitter end, questions still linger and it seems that they are here to stay. Is there any chance that the business can be restored? If that chance is present, how long will it take for everything to return to normal? What provoked the change in the first place? Has all of this stood as a subtle, nonverbal cry for help from the declining company's designers? And if the owner of the company, Lyle, needs all the help he can get as many animals have begun to conclude, when can we expect the return of Trevor?

. . .

If I had failed in working to keep the HHDA from its approaching collapse, then I would continue the fight to keep everything steady until that day came around. Not only did I owe it to my own mental health, I owed it to everyone around me and the state of their dying happiness. I was going to solve this and help everyone around me in the process, no matter how long it took. No matter what it did to me.

It was incredible how much force one could gather to push themselves up from the ground when such immense and soul-crushing pressure held them down. It was just as remarkable to see how something of that extent transforms them into something completely different, chasing out the old and filling with the new simply for a sense of grounding.

A downfall cut the deepest right when it attacked. If I had hauled myself through the worst, a dense road like walking in a dream where your feet plastered to the ground and your legs could never move quick enough, then I could make it through the rest. The heaviness that hung over me was like the weight of the world sat on my shoulders, every pair of eyes on me to see what I would do next. The fate of the company depended on my perseverance to carry that weight if nothing else.

I wasn't strong enough.